The Sixth Race
Normally, in O-R-B the Malus and Alyssians are the only playable races. In the campaign's later missions, Aldar ships come into play, sometimes the Kyulek and the Elathen appear as well, but a sixth race exists, and shows itself in the hidden Alyssian campaign mission number 9. (Number 8 is the Alyssian Victory cutscene, or so it seems to the uneducated eye.) This sixth race is not playable, nor is it an assignable race to a custom game. It is unknown what race AI this sixth race uses. Characteristics Little is known about the sixth race. It is known from the Alyssian audio logs buried in the game files that this sixth race is not one of the Aldar's creations, and is in fact an old enemy of the Aldar and seeks their revenge for being shunned by the Aldar. Their only known vessel, the Behemoth is massive, but not as big as a Jul--Gatherer. This vessel takes on the remnants of the Kyulek fleet, the Alyssian fleet and the Malus fleets, and apparently wins without so much as a scratch. This race is capable of resurrecting dead lifeforms, as is shown when the race revives the narrator of the last few audio logs. They act very much like the Borg from the Star Trek franchise, assimilating and brainwashing those they come into contact with. Speculation This race may be the elusive 'Spirits' that the Aldar narrator mentions in the intro movie, and the Alyssian outro movie hints at. It is known from the intro movie that the 'spirits' were not friends of the Aldar, and that there was only a short truce between the two, when the 'Spirits' turned on the truce, and attacked the Aldar, using the Elathen. Trivia The sixth race is mentioned in the audio logs which can be found in the game's sound folder as an mp3 file. The audio logs that deal with the sixth race begin with as9end and a number. The narrator of the logs is not the usual Alyssian narrator. The sixth race's vessel is listed as an Aldar ship, probably due to time constraint or a lazy coder. It is the AldarCapDread ship on the list, or Dreadnaught for short. It's name when the mouse is over it while playing the game is Behemoth. It can hyperjump, but lacks sensors, and crashes the game when it attacks. This in turn has lead to an idea that the Alyssian hidden missions were not completed, which explains why there are triggers in the Machina Sector level to unlock the mission, but it crashes the game when it tries to load the mission. (Note that this has only been tested on computers running Windows 8 as an operating system AND has the 1.04 patch for ORB. It has not yet been tested on WIN XP, Vista or 7, which could actually yield different results.) The Kyulek and Elathen are enemies of this sixth race. The Kyulek in fact were guarding the energy portal that allowed the vessel to jump to the Aldus system, in the Observer sector. When the vessel jumped into the sector, the Kyulek dropped all hostilities with the other races, and the Malus and Alyssians fought alongside the Kyulek to subdue the vessel, but were overpowered. The narrator of the audio log files that concern the sixth race has a subtle change in voice, growing deeper, and slightly demonic in tone as he explains why he joined the ranks of the sixth race, and his hopes and his threat to his friends to join him in enlightenment.